On October 10, the Hongyi Honor College of WHU organized an outdoor agricultural experience program for the first batch of around 300 hundred undergraduates in Guang Gu Campsite, an educational practice base in Wuhan.
This unprecedented half-day farming event began with the thrilling rice harvest and threshing. In the afternoon, students were actively involved in unearthing sweet potatoes and working the soil. Poster competition and photograph-taking were held before their departure of the campsite. In the early autumn breeze, the participants enjoyed an unforgettable agricultural experience.
Students harvesting crops (up) and threshing (down)
Students were divided into 23 groups to get the harvest from respective paddies. Sickles, gloves and straw hats were distributed to each group. Apart from those cutting crops, other groupmates were responsible to thresh vigorously without the assistance of machine as well as fill in green hessian bags with the crops. The host even expected every group to accomplish the target of a bumper harvest of 50 kg. Despite strong sunlight and difficulty, many groups still achieved the goal with great enthusiasm and reaped their reward of a plentiful barbecue lunch.
Students unearthing a sweet potato (up) and working the soil with their teachers (down)
In the afternoon, the students unearthed sweet potatoes carefully by using trowels and shovels. The work barely requires technique but prudence because collectors have to ensure not to rip vines in advance of attaching sweet potatoes. Completing the unearthing, the students tilled the soil with hoes and forks.
Not long after going off the fields and taking a well-earned rest, the students started making posters for the competition as well as to articulate their opinions and feelings for the meaningful farming event. Di Dongxu, a student from the Hongyi Honor College said that this half-day farm work made him realize his lack of exercise in daily life. “It is hard to imagine how the farmers managed to do those hard works in the old days when the technology was so backward. I realize the importance of cherishing food and the good days that we are living now.”
A group writing a big “exhaustion” on their poster with a rhyme on two sides won the poster competition.
The dean of the Hongyi Honor College of WHU, Shi Jing, expressed that this off-campus farming experience was significant for students to learn beyond books and classroom but life. He also extended his wish that this sort of fruitful activity could continue in the future.
Photo by Ke Chennan
Edited by Yu Jianan, Wei Yena, Luo Yuanyuan and Hu Sijia
